On 12/23/2015 5:01 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 15:10:15 -0600, philo wrote:

I've worked with lead acid batteries for 38 years and have never heard
of one getting reversed polarity.

Well, I've worked with batteries a little longer than that - and
I've seen some strange things happen - particularly "down on the farm"
(and yes, several of my years working with batteries were with a farm
equipment dealer - and I worked on the farm for a few years prior to
that!!!!)


SWINGING CONTEST! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

-
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On 12/23/2015 5:04 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 16:23:11 -0500, Wade Garrett
wrote:

If it's a positive ground vehicle, wouldn't the red charger clip go to
the negative black batt terminal?
No. Why would you think that?? It is the terminal that connects to
the ground that changes between pos and neg ground - on a Pos ground
vehicle, the red post goes to ground while on a neg ground vehicle the
black post goes to ground.


Regardless of which is ground, the red clip
goes to + red positive, and the black clip
goes to - black negative.

I've been working with batteries for more
than 8 years. Nyah, nyah to Philo and Clare.


--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 16:29:12 -0600, philo wrote:




Even though I never heard of a battery having reversed polarity I
Googled and found that if a battery is totally discharged then reverse
charged...the polarity can in fact reverse...
so I learned something.


My feeling is that it's unlikely it was mis-marked at the factory


so I guess I'd discharge the battery , the properly charge it and see if
it wills till hold a charge

I googled "12 volt battery has reversed polarity" (without the quotes)
and got a lot of information. This seems to be more common than I
thought. I never knew it could happen, or even thought it was possible.
After the initial sparks, I was very puzzled. I double and triple chcked
the connections and markings on battery. I put the charger on a board,
thinking that maybe it's case was grounded. I removed one cable, then
both, (going to the tractor), then got a different charger, which I
first tested on another battery.

At this point, I walked away from the tractor, scratched my head, and
spent a good hour trying to make sense of this. I even called a friend
who is a auto mechanic, and he said he did not know what was going on,
but asked me if I had a bad extension cord plugged into an outlet which
was touching the tractor. I told him I was touching the tractor and
would have known that quickly, not to mention the outlet I have is a
GFI.

All of a sudden I began to think that "maybe..... somehow....." that
battery had reversed it's polarity. I grabbed my VOM meter, and sure as
****, it was reversed. That's when I googled the (above).

This URL was real helpful.
http://www.batterystuff.com/blog/bat...-polarity.html

---

Anyhow, I bought this tractor a few months ago, and I ran it for many
hours, and thoroughly tested it, while looking for anything needing
repair or maintenance. I wrote a list of stuff to fix, along with parts
needed, such as oil filter, oil, grease, wire, etc. Thats when I
disconnected the battery and began to replace the wiring to the lights,
which had a dead short (but was disconnected). The battery was
disconnected for at least a week, because I had to buy a new switch and
had other thing to do at the time. I rewired the lights, did other
repairs, and it sat for weeks. Then when I tried to start it, it would
not fire up. But I was aware that I had left the hood off and it had
rained on the distributor.
At the time I had other priorities, and I finally got back to working on
it yesterday.

Anyhow, the battery never was discharged since I bought the tractor. The
battery was getting low, and barely turned the starter yesterday, so
that's when I connected my charger and had the "spark display".

This tells me that the battery must have been reversed BEFORE I bought
the tractor, because I never let that battery totally discharge since I
bought the tractor.

I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!

On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:


I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!






Yep


38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

On 12/23/2015 6:05 PM, philo wrote:
On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:


I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!






Yep


38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

What a bunch of youngsters. ;-)
Back in 1963, my dad had a TV repair shop.
He did some work for a car repair shop.
One day he fixed the blown output transistor on a car radio.
This was when car radios still had tubes, but they had switched
to one transistor in the audio output.
Car guy bought it back...It's broke.
Fixed it again.
Car guy brought it back...IT'S BROKE!!!
Fixed it again.
This time Dad and I went over to the shop and
measured the battery. Was charged backwards.

On 12/23/2015 01:46 AM, Micky wrote:
Don't you mean to say that it's possible to change the polarity of a
generator (not an alternator) by connecting the battery backwards,
even for a short time?

You can also reverse the polarity of a battery if it's close to
completely discharged.

On 12/23/2015 02:06 AM, wrote:
I knew there was some sort of polarity issues with generators.
I did NOT know a battery could reverse polarity. In fact I cant see how
that could occur without destroying the battery, burning up wiring, or
damaging something else.

Tractors are rugged It certainly isn't optimal but there isn't that
much that can go wrong on an old tractor. probably the only thing that's
solid state is the rear axle. The ammeter, if it even has one, would
read backwards. The capacitor in the distributor isn't electrolytic so
it wouldn't care.

I dimly remember an old test where you would hold the point of a lead
pencil between a spark plug wire and ground to see which way that was
going but I don't know if that would even be noticeable on a tractor.
The theory was the center electrode of the plug what physically hotter
than the shell and you wanted the spark to jump from the center to the
shell. Reverse the coil leads and it would go the other way.

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 18:26:09 -0800, mike wrote:


The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

What a bunch of youngsters. ;-)
Back in 1963, my dad had a TV repair shop.
He did some work for a car repair shop.
One day he fixed the blown output transistor on a car radio.
This was when car radios still had tubes, but they had switched
to one transistor in the audio output.
Car guy bought it back...It's broke.
Fixed it again.
Car guy brought it back...IT'S BROKE!!!
Fixed it again.
This time Dad and I went over to the shop and
measured the battery. Was charged backwards.

I remember those old tube car radios with a power transistor output. I
know that anything with transistors wont tolerate reversed power. It
just burns up the transistor(s). Modern electronics that operate on
batteries (Cell type, like AA AAA C D), generally have a diode or more
to prevent burning up the device because it's too easy to put in
batteries backwards.

If my tractor has a transistorized radio, or electronic ignition module,
it/they would be fried now. But I dont have any of that.....

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 20:05:03 -0600, philo wrote:

On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:


I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!






Yep


38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

So it just repolarized by itself.... ????
That comes as a surprise. I'd think that something would overload and
burn out, most likely the regulator or the wire going to the battery.

I wonder what would happen if I just reversed the leads on my battery?
NO, I'M NOT GOING TO TRY IT!

Actually, I already got a Delco Alternator from an old junked truck
sitting on my bench, and I talked to the guy at the machine shop about
making me a bracket next week. This tractor is to be used, not shown for
it's antique value. So I'm getting rid of that troublesome generator.
I'll save the old generator. If I ever sell the tractor, it will go with
it (if the buyer wants it). I'll just leave the regulator and it's
wiring there, (and not used), and I'll run completely new wiring from
the alternator to the "system".

I guess I will try to drain the battery and repolarize it. Although it
still held a charge quite well, it's got some years on it, so if I have
to replace it, I will. At this point, I'm more curious if I can
repolarize it than anything else.

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 8:05:02 PM UTC-6, philo wrote:
On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:

I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!


Yep

38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

You were in the business so you never let batteries go completely dead and knew how to properly maintain them. I have seen a reversed polarity reading on an old battery but it was no more than a volt or two and not enough power to make a spark.

I do have to wonder about the backwards battery in the old car. If it started OK with a reversed polarity on the starter, I wonder about the starter design since it's a DC motor. Wouldn't it tend to spin backwards and the Bendix fail to engage since it's designed to operate in one direction? I know some British cars were positive ground but the Brits are weird anyway and they drive on the wrong side of the road. ヽ(€¢€¿€¢)ノ

[8~{} Uncle Polarized Monster

On 12/23/2015 8:26 PM, mike wrote:
On 12/23/2015 6:05 PM, philo wrote:
On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:


I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!






Yep


38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

What a bunch of youngsters. ;-)
Back in 1963, my dad had a TV repair shop.
He did some work for a car repair shop.
One day he fixed the blown output transistor on a car radio.
This was when car radios still had tubes, but they had switched
to one transistor in the audio output.
Car guy bought it back...It's broke.
Fixed it again.
Car guy brought it back...IT'S BROKE!!!
Fixed it again.
This time Dad and I went over to the shop and
measured the battery. Was charged backwards.



Very interesting


BTW: My '53 Chevy (3100 truck) had a radio that must have been put in
later. It ran off a vibrator and reversed battery polarity did not matter

wrote in message ...

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 16:23:11 -0500, Wade Garrett
wrote:

On 12/22/15 9:08 PM, wrote:
I have a farm tractor with a positive ground. I hooked a 15A battery
charger to it, and had massive sparks shooting all over the place. Yes,
I did connect the polarity correctly, with the red clip on the batt +
post and black one in the batt - post.

Because of this, I removed one of the battery cables (to the
tractor)[the negative one], and reconnected the charger. The sparks were
so intense, they melted a small hole at the top of the battery post.

In all the years I have charged auto batteries, I have never had this
happen. Even touching the clips together on the charger dont cause such
intense sparks. What the heck could cause this?
My first thought is a shorted battery, but the tractor lights work fine.
There just is not enough charge to turn the starter over fast enough to
start the engine. I would think that if the battery was 'dead shorted'
it would not operate the lights, or make the starter turn slowly.

To insure the charger is not defective, I connected it to another
battery and it's charging properly, on both the 2A and the 15A settings.

Anyone have any clue what's happening. I sure dont!!


If it's a positive ground vehicle, wouldn't the red charger clip go to
the negative black batt terminal?
No. Why would you think that?? It is the terminal that connects to
the ground that changes between pos and neg ground - on a Pos ground
vehicle, the red post goes to ground while on a neg ground vehicle the
black post goes to ground.

Quite possible when the battery was totally dead sometime some
"farmer" thought as you do, and connected the charger backwards -
thereby reverse charging the battery - and that "reflashed" the
generator to be a negative ground generator instead of positive.


You are acting as to be expert on battery but by reading your post
I personally would not let you change battery in flashlight!

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 15:19:10 -0500, wrote:

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 03:46:41 -0500, Micky
wrote:

On Tue, 22 Dec 2015 19:48:09 -0700, rbowman
wrote:

On 12/22/2015 07:08 PM, wrote:
Anyone have any clue what's happening. I sure dont!!

This is a long shot. Do you have a meter to verify the positive terminal
is in fact positive? It's rare but it is possible to reverse the
polarity on a discharged battery by connecting it backwards.

Don't you mean to say that it's possible to change the polarity of a
generator (not an alternator) by connecting the battery backwards,
even for a short time?

At any rate, you're right about the meter. He should measure the
voltage of the battery without the charger, with the charger, without
the charger when cranking the starter motor.

If low charge, or a bad battery, is really the problem, the voltage
will drop too much when cranking the starter.

(With a car, I don't need a meter and don't need to get out of the
driver's seat by trying to blow the horn while cranking the engine. I
do this test when the car won't crank. If it doesn't blow well, it's
the battery. It if blows well, the starter isn't even engaging
electrically, so its the starter circuit or the sstarter.)

It's the farm tractor part that makes me suspicious:

http://fergusontractors.org/fena/wp-...-Generator.pdf

Yeah, a gnerator. Not a battery.

Like I said, it's a long shot that the entire system might have been
reversed.

That only works if the battery is reversed, connected backwards. Maybe
it is and the OP is going by the post positions, which are reversed,
so he should look at the embossed + and - next to the battery posts.
Those are always accurate.
No they are not. If a battery has gone dead it can be charged either
way. If the battery was dead and the generaztor had lost it's residual
magnetism and was polarized backwards, the terminal markings on the
battery will be wrong, and the battery will not produce the full rated
cranking capacity because the pos plates are charged neg, and the neg
plates are charged pos, and the plate chemistry is different + to -

Okay, I defer to your greater experience. You and bowman have
convinced me.

On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 03:23:22 -0800 (PST), Uncle Monster
wrote:

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 8:05:02 PM UTC-6, philo wrote:
On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:

I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!


Yep

38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

You were in the business so you never let batteries go completely dead and knew how to properly maintain them. I have seen a reversed polarity reading on an old battery but it was no more than a volt or two and not enough power to make a spark.

I do have to wonder about the backwards battery in the old car. If it started OK with a reversed polarity on the starter, I wonder about the starter design since it's a DC motor. Wouldn't it tend to spin backwards and the Bendix fail to engage since it's designed to operate in one direction? I know some British cars were positive ground but the Brits are weird anyway and they drive on the wrong side of the road. ?(•?•)?

[8~{} Uncle Polarized Monster
2 words.
"Series wound."
or
"wound stator"

If those 2 words were "Permanent Magnet" it would be a different
story

On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 07:17:18 -0600, philo wrote:

On 12/23/2015 8:26 PM, mike wrote:
On 12/23/2015 6:05 PM, philo wrote:
On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:


I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!






Yep


38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

What a bunch of youngsters. ;-)
Back in 1963, my dad had a TV repair shop.
He did some work for a car repair shop.
One day he fixed the blown output transistor on a car radio.
This was when car radios still had tubes, but they had switched
to one transistor in the audio output.
Car guy bought it back...It's broke.
Fixed it again.
Car guy brought it back...IT'S BROKE!!!
Fixed it again.
This time Dad and I went over to the shop and
measured the battery. Was charged backwards.



Very interesting


BTW: My '53 Chevy (3100 truck) had a radio that must have been put in
later. It ran off a vibrator and reversed battery polarity did not matter
And it likely had a transformer output stage - not a power
transistor. It was an 'all tube" radio - most definitely- back in '53

On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 09:58:45 -0800, "Tony944" wrote:



wrote in message ...

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 16:23:11 -0500, Wade Garrett
wrote:

On 12/22/15 9:08 PM, wrote:
I have a farm tractor with a positive ground. I hooked a 15A battery
charger to it, and had massive sparks shooting all over the place. Yes,
I did connect the polarity correctly, with the red clip on the batt +
post and black one in the batt - post.

Because of this, I removed one of the battery cables (to the
tractor)[the negative one], and reconnected the charger. The sparks were
so intense, they melted a small hole at the top of the battery post.

In all the years I have charged auto batteries, I have never had this
happen. Even touching the clips together on the charger dont cause such
intense sparks. What the heck could cause this?
My first thought is a shorted battery, but the tractor lights work fine.
There just is not enough charge to turn the starter over fast enough to
start the engine. I would think that if the battery was 'dead shorted'
it would not operate the lights, or make the starter turn slowly.

To insure the charger is not defective, I connected it to another
battery and it's charging properly, on both the 2A and the 15A settings.

Anyone have any clue what's happening. I sure dont!!


If it's a positive ground vehicle, wouldn't the red charger clip go to
the negative black batt terminal?
No. Why would you think that?? It is the terminal that connects to
the ground that changes between pos and neg ground - on a Pos ground
vehicle, the red post goes to ground while on a neg ground vehicle the
black post goes to ground.

Quite possible when the battery was totally dead sometime some
"farmer" thought as you do, and connected the charger backwards -
thereby reverse charging the battery - and that "reflashed" the
generator to be a negative ground generator instead of positive.


You are acting as to be expert on battery but by reading your post
I personally would not let you change battery in flashlight!
Who - me, or the "painted cow"?
I spent half my working life as an auto mechanic/auto electric
specialist/service manager/Automotive instructor, and the other half
as a computer technician - and I built and drove my own electric car
back in the (late) seventies - so I know a bit about batteries.

Don't know about the "painted cow"

On Thursday, December 24, 2015 at 4:15:11 PM UTC-6, wrote:
On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 03:23:22 -0800 (PST), Uncle Monster
wrote:

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 8:05:02 PM UTC-6, philo wrote:
On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:

I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!


Yep

38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

You were in the business so you never let batteries go completely dead and knew how to properly maintain them. I have seen a reversed polarity reading on an old battery but it was no more than a volt or two and not enough power to make a spark.

I do have to wonder about the backwards battery in the old car. If it started OK with a reversed polarity on the starter, I wonder about the starter design since it's a DC motor. Wouldn't it tend to spin backwards and the Bendix fail to engage since it's designed to operate in one direction? I know some British cars were positive ground but the Brits are weird anyway and they drive on the wrong side of the road. ?(€¢?€¢)?

[8~{} Uncle Polarized Monster
2 words.
"Series wound."
or
"wound stator"

If those 2 words were "Permanent Magnet" it would be a different
story

That's what I was thinking but I remember something about newer designed starters that use rare earth permanent magnets because it makes the starter so much lighter. I've never tried reverse polarity on a conventional starter.. I imagine I could have back on the farm. We did convert a 6 volt 1949 Ferguson tractor to 12 VDC and installed a Mopar alternator and regulator from one of the old cars we had. I don't recall if the tractor was originally a positive ground but it ran great after we rebuilt the engine and rewired it. I'm trying to remember if we got another starter for it that was designed for 12 volts. It was great on the farm because we could have all kinds of vehicles dismantled and there were no nosy neighbors to call some city department to complain. ヽ(€¢€¿€¢)ノ

[8~{} Uncle Tractor Monster

On Thursday, December 24, 2015 at 4:19:52 PM UTC-6, wrote:
On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 09:58:45 -0800, "Tony944" wrote:



wrote in message ...

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 16:23:11 -0500, Wade Garrett
wrote:

On 12/22/15 9:08 PM, wrote:
I have a farm tractor with a positive ground. I hooked a 15A battery
charger to it, and had massive sparks shooting all over the place. Yes,
I did connect the polarity correctly, with the red clip on the batt +
post and black one in the batt - post.

Because of this, I removed one of the battery cables (to the
tractor)[the negative one], and reconnected the charger. The sparks were
so intense, they melted a small hole at the top of the battery post.

In all the years I have charged auto batteries, I have never had this
happen. Even touching the clips together on the charger dont cause such
intense sparks. What the heck could cause this?
My first thought is a shorted battery, but the tractor lights work fine.
There just is not enough charge to turn the starter over fast enough to
start the engine. I would think that if the battery was 'dead shorted'
it would not operate the lights, or make the starter turn slowly.

To insure the charger is not defective, I connected it to another
battery and it's charging properly, on both the 2A and the 15A settings.

Anyone have any clue what's happening. I sure dont!!


If it's a positive ground vehicle, wouldn't the red charger clip go to
the negative black batt terminal?
No. Why would you think that?? It is the terminal that connects to
the ground that changes between pos and neg ground - on a Pos ground
vehicle, the red post goes to ground while on a neg ground vehicle the
black post goes to ground.

Quite possible when the battery was totally dead sometime some
"farmer" thought as you do, and connected the charger backwards -
thereby reverse charging the battery - and that "reflashed" the
generator to be a negative ground generator instead of positive.


You are acting as to be expert on battery but by reading your post
I personally would not let you change battery in flashlight!
Who - me, or the "painted cow"?
I spent half my working life as an auto mechanic/auto electric
specialist/service manager/Automotive instructor, and the other half
as a computer technician - and I built and drove my own electric car
back in the (late) seventies - so I know a bit about batteries.

Don't know about the "painted cow"

A bovine with lipstick. (€¢€¿€¢)

[8~{} Uncle Pretty Monster

On 12/24/2015 5:29 PM, Uncle Monster wrote:
On Thursday, December 24, 2015 at 4:15:11 PM UTC-6, wrote:

If those 2 words were "Permanent Magnet" it would be a different
story

That's what I was thinking but I remember something about newer designed starters
that use rare earth permanent magnets because it makes the starter so much lighter.
I've never tried reverse polarity on a conventional starter. I imagine I could have
back on the farm. We did convert a 6 volt 1949 Ferguson tractor to 12 VDC and installed
a Mopar alternator and regulator from one of the old cars we had. I don't recall if
the tractor was originally a positive ground but it ran great after we rebuilt the
engine and rewired it. I'm trying to remember if we got another starter for it that
was designed for 12 volts. It was great on the farm because we could have all kinds
of vehicles dismantled and there were no nosy neighbors to call some city department
to complain. ヽ(€¢€¿€¢)ノ


Speaking of magnets, a funny thing happened recently when we were out
eating dinner. When we got our knife and fork my knife handle was
magnetized and it would connect with the handle of my fork. I'd pick it
up off the table and the fork would spin as I moved the knife slightly
in different directions. A lady at another table asked me how I was
doing that... was I one of those freaky people would could do weird
tricks like that?? I just laughed and told her I didn't know how it was
doing that, just that it was fun!



--
Maggie

On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 17:19:52 -0500, wrote:



You are acting as to be expert on battery but by reading your post
I personally would not let you change battery in flashlight!
Who - me, or the "painted cow"?
I spent half my working life as an auto mechanic/auto electric
specialist/service manager/Automotive instructor, and the other half
as a computer technician - and I built and drove my own electric car
back in the (late) seventies - so I know a bit about batteries.

Don't know about the "painted cow"

I didn't do it, but you can cuff me if you wish...

I'm the guy with this problem (OP). I worked as an electrician for
years, and did electronics as a hobby for years too. But this battery
thing is a new one for me. I never know it was possible, which is why I
posted this, while I was still compleltely puzzled by it.

Since then, this thread and what I googled on th web, has taught me
something new. But I still have to clean up the mess.... The holiday and
bad weather, have kept me from doing anything except reading and
determining which is the best solution. At least now I know what
occurred, even if it's still sort of unbelievable.

So, I put a note under my tree, and asked Santa for a brand new tractor.
That should work.
Which reminds me, I need to go look for flying reindeer.....
I can always hire them to pull my tractor... LOL....

Later!

wrote in message
...
BTW: My '53 Chevy (3100 truck) had a radio that must have been put in
later. It ran off a vibrator and reversed battery polarity did not matter
And it likely had a transformer output stage - not a power
transistor. It was an 'all tube" radio - most definitely- back in '53

If it was put in later, even if it had a vibrator it probably would not have
had a transistor in it. There were some car radios that worked iwth 12
volts on the plates of the tubes, except they could not make very much
audio power so a transistor or two were used in the audio output stage.

On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 15:29:50 -0800 (PST), Uncle Monster
wrote:

On Thursday, December 24, 2015 at 4:15:11 PM UTC-6, wrote:
On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 03:23:22 -0800 (PST), Uncle Monster
wrote:

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 8:05:02 PM UTC-6, philo wrote:
On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:

I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!


Yep

38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

You were in the business so you never let batteries go completely dead and knew how to properly maintain them. I have seen a reversed polarity reading on an old battery but it was no more than a volt or two and not enough power to make a spark.

I do have to wonder about the backwards battery in the old car. If it started OK with a reversed polarity on the starter, I wonder about the starter design since it's a DC motor. Wouldn't it tend to spin backwards and the Bendix fail to engage since it's designed to operate in one direction? I know some British cars were positive ground but the Brits are weird anyway and they drive on the wrong side of the road. ?(•?•)?

[8~{} Uncle Polarized Monster
2 words.
"Series wound."
or
"wound stator"

If those 2 words were "Permanent Magnet" it would be a different
story

That's what I was thinking but I remember something about newer designed starters that use rare earth permanent magnets because it makes the starter so much lighter. I've never tried reverse polarity on a conventional starter. I imagine I could have back on the farm. We did convert a 6 volt 1949 Ferguson tractor to 12 VDC and installed a Mopar alternator and regulator from one of the old cars we had. I don't recall if the tractor was originally a positive ground but it ran great after we rebuilt the engine and rewired it. I'm trying to remember if we got another starter for it that was designed for 12 volts. It was great on the farm because we could have all kinds of vehicles dismantled and there were no nosy neighbors to call some city department to complain. ?(•?•)?

[8~{} Uncle Tractor Monster
When I converted my 1953 Coroet to 12 volts I kept the 6 volt
starter. Cranked that little Hemi like a trooper!!!

On Thu, 24 Dec 2015 22:04:22 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .
BTW: My '53 Chevy (3100 truck) had a radio that must have been put in
later. It ran off a vibrator and reversed battery polarity did not matter
And it likely had a transformer output stage - not a power
transistor. It was an 'all tube" radio - most definitely- back in '53

If it was put in later, even if it had a vibrator it probably would not have
had a transistor in it. There were some car radios that worked iwth 12
volts on the plates of the tubes, except they could not make very much
audio power so a transistor or two were used in the audio output stage.

No "all solid state" radio used vibrators - and I don't know of any
with solid state output (Hybrid) that used them either - and not all
"vibrator" radios were polarity agnostic either - There were quite a
few "vibrator" radios thay used the vibrator not only as the"inverter"
but also as the "rectifier" - they were called Synchronous Rectifiers
and did not require a rectifier tube or plate rectifier to make the
high voltage DC required for the plates.
Connect one of those to reverse polarity and the magic smoke got out
quite quickly (and was not easy or cheap to get back in!!!)
(and if the capacitor that tuned the transformer to "ring" at 115cps
failed, the points on the vibrator would cook in a matter af a very
few hours, instead of lasting for 20 or more years!!!)

philo posted for all of us...



Yep


38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed


If you did this today.... (tears rolling down cheeks) PD looking for terror
cell...

--
Tekkie

posted for all of us...


Who - me, or the "painted cow"?
I spent half my working life as an auto mechanic/auto electric
specialist/service manager/Automotive instructor, and the other half
as a computer technician - and I built and drove my own electric car
back in the (late) seventies - so I know a bit about batteries.

Don't know about the "painted cow"


tony911 is from the old alt.hvac crowd and used to be sensible but I think
Stumped rubbed of on him.

--
Tekkie

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 15:15:24 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 22 Dec 2015 21:59:43 -0700, Tony Hwang
wrote:

mike wrote:
On 12/22/2015 6:08 PM, wrote:
I have a farm tractor with a positive ground. I hooked a 15A battery
charger to it, and had massive sparks shooting all over the place. Yes,
I did connect the polarity correctly, with the red clip on the batt +
post and black one in the batt - post.

Because of this, I removed one of the battery cables (to the
tractor)[the negative one], and reconnected the charger. The sparks were
so intense, they melted a small hole at the top of the battery post.

In all the years I have charged auto batteries, I have never had this
happen. Even touching the clips together on the charger dont cause such
intense sparks. What the heck could cause this?
My first thought is a shorted battery, but the tractor lights work fine.
There just is not enough charge to turn the starter over fast enough to
start the engine. I would think that if the battery was 'dead shorted'
it would not operate the lights, or make the starter turn slowly.

To insure the charger is not defective, I connected it to another
battery and it's charging properly, on both the 2A and the 15A settings.

Anyone have any clue what's happening. I sure dont!!

Did you actually measure the battery voltage??
If you have a GENERATOR instead of an ALTERNATOR, it's possible for
the thing to get polarized backwards and charge your battery backwards.

Did OP put in a new generator then?
Reverse polarization and charging the attery backwards would also
explain why he has low cranking power as a reverse charged battery
does not produce as much current output as a properly charged battery.

If the battery was reverse charged wouldn't the starter be turning
backwards???

On 12/26/2015 6:16 PM, Ashton Crusher wrote:


If the battery was reverse charged wouldn't the starter be turning
backwards???

shortest path to that answer is to read this thread.

On Sat, 26 Dec 2015 18:27:35 -0800, mike wrote:

On 12/26/2015 6:16 PM, Ashton Crusher wrote:


If the battery was reverse charged wouldn't the starter be turning
backwards???

shortest path to that answer is to read this thread.

+1

Uncle Monster wrote:
On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 8:05:02 PM UTC-6, philo wrote:
On 12/23/2015 7:27 PM, wrote:

I worked as an electrician for years, and I have done a lot of tinkering
with electronics, and this has been a real learning experience. In all
my years, I never knew a battery could reverse polarity!!!


Yep

38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.

Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards
but the generator just repolarized.

The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively
but nothing was harmed

You were in the business so you never let batteries go completely dead and knew how to properly maintain them. I have seen a reversed polarity reading on an old battery but it was no more than a volt or two and not enough power to make a spark.

I do have to wonder about the backwards battery in the old car. If it started OK with a reversed polarity on the starter, I wonder about the starter design since it's a DC motor. Wouldn't it tend to spin backwards and the Bendix fail to engage since it's designed to operate in one direction? I know some British cars were positive ground but the Brits are weird anyway and they drive on the wrong side of the road. ヽ(€¢€¿€¢)ノ

[8~{} Uncle Polarized Monster


They weren't driving on the wrong side of the road back in the day
before cars or firearms were invented. Since about 90% of men were right
handed they could pull out and hold their swords ready to defend
themselves against a person coming towards them who decided to get funny
and attack them.

I supposed the left handed guys had to learn how to handle their swords
with their right hands?

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.

On Tuesday, December 29, 2015 at 4:42:01 PM UTC-6, Jeff Wisnia wrote:
Uncle Monster wrote:

I do have to wonder about the backwards battery in the old car. If it started OK with a reversed polarity on the starter, I wonder about the starter design since it's a DC motor. Wouldn't it tend to spin backwards and the Bendix fail to engage since it's designed to operate in one direction? I know some British cars were positive ground but the Brits are weird anyway and they drive on the wrong side of the road. ヽ(€¢€¿€¢)ノ

[8~{} Uncle Polarized Monster


They weren't driving on the wrong side of the road back in the day
before cars or firearms were invented. Since about 90% of men were right
handed they could pull out and hold their swords ready to defend
themselves against a person coming towards them who decided to get funny
and attack them.

I supposed the left handed guys had to learn how to handle their swords
with their right hands?

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia

Interesting, England, a seafaring nation followed a rule that ships pass on the right so I guess the fact that horse riding knights passed on the left so their sword hand is free to use to strike down an enemy is plausible but I could swear jousting knights passed on the right. Oh well, what do I know, I'm an American, we use guns. ヽ(€¢€¿€¢)ノ

[8~{} Uncle Duel Monster